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400 hook up for the $100,000 Shootout

David Lockwood

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but how about a bill for some bills?

That's the reward for the record fleet of 110 boats and more than 400 anglers competing in the $100,000 Shootout game-fishing tournament in Port Stephens over the weekend.

The two-day Shootout, one of the richest cash tournaments on the Australian game-fishing calendar, offers $10,000 cheques to those who tag the most billfish and weigh the biggest marlin.

A minimum 150-kilogram marlin on any line class can be weighed. All smaller fish must be tagged and set free. Other billfish such as sailfish, broadbill and shortbill spearfish can also be tagged for points.

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To bolster release survival rates, the Shootout is a circle-hook only event. When fished with live or dead baits, circle hooks tend to catch in the fish's jaw hinge rather than the stomach.

Competing game fishers will have their final throw of the dice on Sunday from 7 am to 4 pm between 33 degrees 15 minutes South (Bird Island) and 32 degrees 13 minutes South (Latitude Rock).

Besides big cash prizes for heaviest marlin, most tagged billfish and winning teams, there are junior prizes, merit, hard-luck awards and more. The prestigious tag prize is likely to be won with the small inshore black marlin, while the heaviest marlin will be a blue taken in the wide blue yonder.

But the benign weekend forecast will be music to the ears of all offshore anglers. Central coast skipper Paul Minto has been taking mixed bags. Small dolphin fish are out wide, but the Sydney North FAD is adrift.

Reef fishing in the vicinity of Long Reef has been better still, with some solid snapper on the prowl, teraglin and jewfish, plus kingfish around The Wall. The gravel grounds off Dee Why will produce for drift fishers.

With improving water quality around the bay and harbour mouths, kingfish are back on the bite. There has been a wave of school-sized jewfish from the Hawkesbury to the Harbour. Pittwater has been better for bream, with fish to more than a kilo taking nippers in the shallows.

Another species on the rebound is the dusky flathead. Plenty of specimens are coming from our estuaries, jumping on baits and lures, and a feed is pretty much assured. At $50 a kilogram for fillets at the fishmonger, they taste doubly good on the table.

While kelp has been an issue on the beaches, there are some whiting biting. The weekend neap tides and midnight highs will play into the hands of jewfish specialists. If not on the beach, try the bridge pylons.